Reality
by Alexia Goddess
Summary: Co-written with Makura Koneko; It's Alanna, Sandry, Daine, and Keladry's turn to visit an alternate dimension... To defend an entity in the form of a human child, these four women must first see if they can survive the modern day jungle of Los Angelos!


Reality  
  
  
by Makura Koneko and Alexia Goddess  
  
  
Chapter One  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
One by one, they called them into wakefulness...  
  
"Alanna the Lioness..." the voice was commanding, yet radiated only peaceful intentions.  
  
"Daine the WildMage..." the whisper was softer than rabbit's fur.  
  
"Sandry, Weaver of the Circle..." the tones felt like silk, slippery and teasing, a child's voice.  
  
"Keladry, Lady Knight..." the speaker was challening, now, no longer rabbit's fur.  
  
One by one, they opened their eyes to the summons of the whispering words that called their names.  
  
One by one, they awoke to reality.  
  
  
  
  
One week previous....  
  
  
  
  
"That's it, that's the last one," the Mage growled, shredding the paper in his hands as he stormed to the window. Outside, the bright lights of the Los Angelos streamed through the slits in the closed blinds of the bottom-rate motel room.  
  
The woman sitting at the table that bore a mountain of papers and files slumped, her expression dejected.  
  
"Then hope is lost," the third person, a young girl sitting on the bed, wrapped her arms around her knees.  
  
"Don't say that, love," the woman sitting at the table rose and went to the girl, putting her arms around her. The man at the window seethed, his fists clenched.  
  
"Of al the millions of dimensions out there...not one...not one of them carries a warrior strong enough...not one..." he growled.  
  
"You should just let Them have me," the girl whispered, tears running down her face. "You can't protect me from Them forever, sis, uncle," she sat up, wiping her tears. A strand of hair over her forehead shifted, revealing for a moment a glitter on her brow. It was gone the next moment as she tried to look brave.  
  
"We all know that They're getting closer," the girl continued. "And since we have yet to find a champion strong enough to guard me, either in this dimension or in any other, then it only stands to reason that our last option is-"  
  
"Wait." The woman the girl had called 'sis' paused her younger siblings words with a finger to her lips, a thoughtful expression on her face.  
  
"What is it?" The man asked. The woman looked at him and grinned slightly.  
  
"Come with me," she said. The three of them exchanged their robes for 'civilian garb' and left the hotel room after putting everything in a locked and bespelled chest.  
  
Half an hour later, they pulled up in front of a small, run down book store.  
  
"We've been here already!" the man hissed. "We bought every arcane and magical book they had!"  
  
"We're not going to the magic section," the woman retorted, keeping a hand on the girl's shoulder.  
  
"Miss Piera! Mr. Dios! And little Miss Lyra, how are you all?" the storekeeper greeted them warmly. As he should, all three of them thought; they had bought three hundred american dollars worth of books from him last week.  
  
"Hello, Mr. Eharos," the woman, Piera, greeted him. "Sorry, we're not here for any more magic books." She told him. He waved his hands.  
  
"No problem, no problem, just enjoy yourselves." He winked at Lyra and tossed her a lollipop out of the canister on the counter. She caught it with presicsion not common in girls her age, and, grinning she thanked him with a nod and followed her sister and young uncle to the back of the store.  
  
"The fantasy section?" Dios growled when he read the label above the row of shelves they stood before. "What the hell do you plan to find here? An author who created her own dimension?"  
  
"Something like that," Piera surprised him. She winked at Lyra as Dios stuttered.  
  
"Hush, uncle," Piera told him. For all he was her uncle, he was younger than her by a year. She scanned the shelves, selected a book, read it, winced, then put it back. She did the same with two more, before coming to one and handing it to Lyra. Lyra read the back, skimmed the first few pages, then shook her head and handed it back without a word; Lyra was forbidden to speak outside the motel room, where there were wardening spells would keep Them from hearing her voice and finding her.  
  
At last, Piera handed her sister a book that the young girl, with ravid attention, began reading right in the middle of the store. She opened her mouth to protest when Piera snatched it away, but shut the contraption when another one, by the same author, was shoved into her hands. It was the first book in another series by the same author. Again, Lyra was soon enthralled...only to have it snatched away, as well, and have a third one, again the first in a series by the same author, shoved under her nose. Lyra sighed, and skimmed the first few pages of that book, then one more before Piera, satisfied, shooed them to the front desk where she purchased all four books of all four series that those first books had been the first installations of.   
  
In the car on the way home, Dios was scruntizing the books.  
  
"But these are fictional characters!" He insisted.  
  
"Exactly." Piera said, pulling into the motel parking lot. They climbed out, and only once inside the motel room, warding spells safely reactivated, did Piera turn to him. "Think about it," she said. "This way They have no way to get ahold of the loved ones of Lyra's chosen champions, since they won't really exist. We don't have the spend the energy to create the person, because they already exist- in a story. We just have to bring them to life."  
  
"But look at these books, look where they're set!" Dios argued. "They still use horses and carriages, titles and magic. This 'real' world will destroy them."  
  
"I think not," Lyra said after a moment. "The characters in these books, they are true heros. True warriors. They will adjust. We will teach them. They're smart, I could tell that from the few pages I read of only the first books. They'll learn, Uncle, and they will guard me once they know what is at stake. Then we can send them back."  
  
At last, Dios agreed.  
  
"Then let us begin," he said. He picked up the topmost book on the stack of new books on the table. "Starting with reading about our Lyra's chosen champions to be..." He tossed the first book in the second series to Piera, and the first book in the third series to Lyra.  
  
They began to read.  
  
  
  
  
  
One Week Later- Ten Minutes before the Present  
  
  
  
  
  
"I confess to wondering if perhaps this...Tamora Pierce isn't a great mage herself, who created her own dimension, met the characters, then wrote about them," Dios confessed as he tossed the last book in the series he'd been reading onto the table. Piera grinned, winked at him, then looked back to her book; she was on the last page of the last book in her series. Lyra grinned. She had finished her series, and the fourth series, yesterday.   
  
"Done," Piera announced, closing the book with a satisfied 'snap.' She put the book on the table. "Now the real work begins," she said. She and Dios opened the chest at the foot of Lyra's bed and took out powders, dried herbs, crystals and candles.   
  
"No time to do it by hand," Piera said softly after a moment of simply standing there, supplies in hand. Dios blinked, then slowly, ever so slightly, opened his senses... He hissed and reeled those senses in.  
  
"They're close, aren't They?" Lyra whispered.  
  
"We have to hurry," Piera said. "Lyra, don't say a word. I don't know if the wardings will shield you as well, with Them so close." She opened one of the bottles in her hand, whispered a few words over the air in the center of the room, then tossed the powdery contents. The spell in the air bore her will for her, sweeping up the powder and laying it where she would have put it herself had she been doing it by hand. Next came the herbs, borne by Dios's will, then powdered crystals, salt rocks, and at last Lyra helped by setting up the candles at specific points throughout the intricate pattern that graced the dirty carpet. There were four spaces in the pattern, and in these spaces Dios, via a technique known to modern day man as 'telekenetikis' set them down in their proper places.  
  
Their eyes met, and uncle and niece nodded. They stood across from each other, crossed their arms, their hands clutching opposite shoulders as they stared at the center of the pattern. Lyra stood read, bottle of a liquid green something in hand.  
  
Dios and Piera began to concentrate...  
  
A soft wind began to stir, but the powders and dried herbs didn't even twitch. Lyra was glad for the ribbon that tied back her long ebony hair; she didn't want it in her face, distracting her, at a time like this...  
  
At last the chanting paused, and Piera grunted; that was Lyra's cue. Quickly, she stepped forward and poured a bit of the green substance onto the book. As she did so, Dios and Piera, then her, then Piera again called out to the main character of each book at the same time she annointed each novel with the green liquid...  
  
  
  
  
Present  
  
  
  
  
One by one, they called them into wakefulness...  
  
"Alanna the Lioness..." the voice was commanding, yet radiated only peaceful intentions.  
  
"Daine the WildMage..." the whisper was softer than rabbit's fur.  
  
"Sandry, Weaver of the Circle..." the tones felt like silk, slippery and teasing, a child's voice.  
  
"Keladry, Lady Knight..." the speaker was challening, now, no longer rabbit's fur.  
  
One by one, they opened their eyes to the summons of the whispering words that called their names.  
  
One by one, they awoke to reality.  
  
Alanna opened her eyes, blinked, confused. Sensations...sensations all around her...it was as if her senses had been doubled. She was so...aware of everything, more so than ever before. She blinked again, her eyes adjusting to the dim light of the room she was in. It looked like a room that had once been grand, at least by a peasant's standards, then had fallen into desrepair- it had a rug, but a poor one. It was then that she frowned and realized that she was standing inside an intricate pattern on that rug, in the center of one of the only four bare squares.  
  
Or, more presicely, a book, as was another girl, standing directly in front of her, a girl that couldn't have been more than fourteen. She teetered ungracefully, trying to stay atop the book, as if afraid to touch the curls and loops of the floor-pattern.  
  
Balance was suddenly something the Lioness was very grateful for.  
  
"Lioness?" A voice Alanna recognized breathed. Alanna looked to her right, her eyes widening in surprise.  
  
"Keladry?" The redhead said. "What are you doing here?"  
  
"I was just about to ask the both of you the same question," another voice said. Both Lady Knights looked to the third voice.  
  
"Daine!" Keladry exclaimed. She moved to step off- Alanna frowned. Why was Kel perched atop a book, as well? Now that she looked again, Daine, to her left, was as well.  
  
"Don't!" The girl standing across from Alanna, a brunette with sun-kissed streaks of gold throughout, warned Kel sharply. Kel paused, regained her balance atop the book and stared at the girl.  
  
"And whyever not?" Kel frowned.  
  
"The spell-circle, it's...goodness, I've never seen such potent magic!" The girl told her. "If you step on a wrong loop or curl, you could end up with donkey's ears or bats wings or heaven knows what! That's 'whyever not!"  
  
"She's right," a voice gasped breathlessly. At once all four girls turned to look at where a woman, pale, drawn, gasping for breath was on her knees, a man and a girl at her side. "We...have to..." she gasped again, choked, unable to finish her words.  
  
"Uncle Dios and I have to deactivate the Riser circle before you can step off the books," the young girl said. She looked straight at Alanna...  
  
The Lioness drew in a sharp breath as power washed over her. Power greater than she'd ever glimpsed...and she'd 'glimpsed' quite a bit...  
  
"Who are you?" Kel beat Alanna to the question that was on all four girls' minds.  
  
"I'm Lyra," the young girl introduced herself.   
  
"I'm Piera," the woman breathed heavily.  
  
"Dios," the man greeted them as he rose and took something out from within his robes. He dumped the contents in one hand, then rubbed the balm-like substance into his hands and arms like a lotion. He came forward and began touching the circle and specific places. Alanna gripped the ember at her throat -thankful it was still there- where the man had touched the circle, magic of no particular color was being absorbed into little black spots, until at last the circle was drained of power. Alanna opened her mouth to inform the others that it was safe, but the girl in front of her stepped down from her book without being told it was safe. Alanna frowned. Could the girl see magic? Alanna saw no magic around her...  
  
"Well, I must say this is all quite an intriguing situation," she said. She turned to Kel, Alanna, and a watchful Daine. "But before we begin asking questions, may I assume that you three, like I, were in the middle of something when you suddenly found yourselfs in a black expanse, then being touched with the sensation of waking up from a long, deep sleep?"  
  
"That's basically it," Daine nodded.  
  
"Same here," Kel said with a frown.  
  
"The same happened to me," Alanna confessed, looking the girl up and down. There was something..different about her. Not quite in the sense that Lyra was, but different nonetheless.  
  
"Do all of you have the same sense of...doubled awareness?" Alanna asked. Kel blinked.  
  
"Yeah, I do," the Lady Knight said after a moment. The girl with the brown hair pursed her lips.  
  
"I feel like...like I do when coming back to the real world after getting thoroughly absorbed in a good book," she said. A bark of laughter brough the girls -and womens- attention back to the other occupants of the room. Alanna fingered her sword hilt at her side, as did Kel.  
  
"What's so amusing?" Daine asked. Dios, the one that had laughed, grinned.  
  
"Funny you should use those words, 'back to the real world after absorbed by a good book,' Sandry," he said. The brown haired girl's eyes widened.  
  
"How do you know my name?" She demanded.   
  
"She's a noble," Alanna realized, recognizing the stance that the girl took, the tilt of her had, the gleem in her eye. But she was also the type of noble that rarely used her influence. Alanna recognized this trait through the way her hands clenched. She herself was often like that...  
  
"Lady Sandrilene fa Toren, to be exact," Lyra grinned, smiling kindly. "Grand niece of Duke Vedris, ruler of Emalan. Student of Dedicate Rosethorn and Dedicate Lark, friend of Daja Kisubo, Briar Moss, and Trisana Chandler."  
  
Alanna frowned. She didn't recognize the land 'Emelan.' 'Sandry,' apparently, did, though.  
  
'Sandry' gaped. "H-how.." She trailed off, too surprised to do anyting but blink.   
  
"Veralidaine Sarrasri," Dios smirked. "Godborn of the Green Lady goddess and the hunter god Weiryn. The Wild Mage. Guardian of the dragon Skysong, lover, friend, and studen of the mage Numair Salmalin."  
  
"Lady Alanna of Olau, Pirate's Swoop, and formerly fief Trebond." Piera seemed to have caught her breath. Piera stood, her arm protectively around Lyra. "The Lioness, Champion of King Jonathan IVI, wife of Baron George Cooper, Winner of the Dominion Jewel, friend of the cat god 'Faithful' and ward of the Goddess."  
  
"And last, but not least, Keladry of Mindelan, Lady Knight, former guardian of a Gryffin, student of Captain Wyldon, friend of animals, Protector of the Small." Lyra's eyes were dancing.  
  
Now Alanna made sure her grip on her sword hilt was secure, and the knives in her belt and boots were in perfect position for easy grabbing.  
  
"How do you know so much about us?" Daine demanded. Dios grinned, smirking slightly.  
  
"Look behind your feet," he said. "to the books you were standing on." The females did so, all four of them warily keeping an eye on the two mages and the girl child. When Alanna finally looked away from a still smirking Dios to the book she held in her hand, she nearly dropped the volume. Swallowing thickly, she forced her mind to comprehend the title written across the cover by reading it aloud...  
  
"Lioness Rampant..." she breathed. Under the title, was a clear illustration of herself, brandishing a sword, her trademark lioness rampant shield on her arm.  
  
"Magic Steps?!" Sandry gasped. "Th-this is me?" She sqeaked, looking at the image of herself standing in that alleyway that had lead her to the boy who danced with magic.  
  
"Realm of the Gods..." Daine murmured. There was no mistaking that the girl standing defiantly before a huge black dragon was herself.  
  
"No way." Kel growled. "Protector of the Small...Lady Knight..." she scrutinized the image on the cover. "I'm not THAT tall!!!"  
  
Lyra laughed, giggled. They looked at her. Kel dropped the book and started to draw her sword before Alanna's hand on her shoulder stopped her. Daine glanced at her friend; the woman's violet orbs were flashing dangerously.  
  
"What's going on?" The Lioness demanded. "Where are we?"  
  
Dios grinned, and Piera smiled kindly.  
  
"Welcome," she said softly. "To reality."  
  
  
  
  
To Be Continued...  
  
  
Well, what do you all think? This story was inspired by the words of 'sarah coldheart raen' in her fic 'Exchange Students.' She has a point; you see tons of fics bringing real-life girls to Tortall/Emelan, but how many do you see bring out beloved heroines to our world...?  
  
Reviews greatly appreciated, since this will let us know whether or not this story is worth continuing. We both have several other fics going, so unless people show interest in this one, it will be set aside and probably never finished. So if you like it, speak up!  
  
Ja until next time!  
  
  
Hope Makes the Universe Shine,  
Makura Koneko  
  
...and...  
  
Smile More, Dream Always,  
Alexia Goddess 


End file.
